


Explosive Potential

by VenetaPsi



Series: In All The Universes We Meet [2]
Category: Banana Bus Squad
Genre: Alternate Universe - Elementary School, Children, Drawing, Fire, M/M, Metaphors, Strangers to Friends, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 09:56:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20872310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VenetaPsi/pseuds/VenetaPsi
Summary: They all knew this whole exchange was meaningless because how do you punish children who know that the consequences are temporary? Who’ve realized the flaws in the system and play it like a game, because they don't act their age, they act with knowledge and experience they can’t possibly have.Part 2 of "In All The Universes We Meet" (Overarching plot)





	Explosive Potential

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a series. While each part can be read individually, you would get the most out of the series form reading beginning to end. I suggest going to "Vapor Strewn", part 1 of the series, if you haven't read up to this part already.

2.  
They sat side by side, each sullen and silent, their presence burning holes into each other’s sides. The paler brunette was bent over a notebook, pen clenched firmly between unadorned fingers and scribbling furiously. The tanner boy with short cropped raven hair to his right leaned back against the wall, arms crossed tightly over his chest, frown locked tight on his lips, and a burning fire in his eyes that dared anyone to challenge him. 

The adults watched the children with equal measures of pity and frustration, exasperation and anger. One boy glared back. The other ignored them entirely.

When the grownups turned away to talk amidst themselves, the boys exchanged curious glances, brown on blue, hidden beneath identical pairs of dark lashes. 

The brunette was known for his apathy, that much the Asian boy knew. Known for not caring about the teachers annoyance, for drawing when he was supposed to be listening, for misbehaving and still getting all of his grades in the highest marks. 

The blue eyed kid stared back at him and Evan _knew_ that he himself had a reputation for being mischievous, a trouble maker, for starting little fires with wood chips on the sidewalk and bringing stolen fireworks to school and making everyone laugh with quiet, sarcastic comments he was told were well above his age. 

Evan shifted in his seat uneasily under the emotionless gaze of those frigid eyes and glanced away with a flush on his cheeks and a nervous bounce in his leg that betrayed the falsity of his stiff, cold exterior. 

“Don’t stare,” He snapped, arms squeezing tighter where they crossed and his dark head turning away as if to try and ignore the other boy. 

“Sorry,” John replied, though his tone was rather monotone and not in the least bit apologetic, and the brunette turned away, went back to scribbling in his notebook. 

The silence was stifling, broken only by the soft conversing of teachers and secretaries and the phone ringing. 

“Do you do _anything_ but draw?” Evan found himself asking, and he really couldn’t stop looking at John, or stop the hard, stressed edge that turned his genuine question into animosity. 

“No,” The brunette responded, bluntly, and the tone of his voice surprised the fight straight out of Evan’s system. 

“You don’t?” He asked, and his voice had fallen softer, almost sounded _hurt._

John’s pencil halted against the paper, and after a second he raised his head and their gazes remet. 

“Why do you care?” He responded, voice slow like he expected Evan was playing at something. 

Evan didn’t know, and so he didn’t answer, and they watched one another quietly. 

“I draw because I like pretty things, and the world isn’t pretty.” John stated, voice almost robotic; tone like he was reciting a script. There was passion is his eyes though, betrayed in the clench of pale fingers on his yellow pencil, and understanding bloomed bright in Evan’s chest. 

“I burn things and make people laugh because everything’s grey,” He responded, words too old as they poured from his young tongue. Too knowing for a boy barely out of size four shoes. 

They studied one another for a few seconds longer, before John nodded slowly, and turned back to his notebook. Not a dismissal, but acceptance. Evan returned to glaring at the adults, fingers itching for a lighter or a firecracker the same way the teenagers seemed to long for their drugs. The faint scratching of graphite against parchment filled his ears, kept him grounded as cabin fever set in deep from being confined to the small office. He longed to be outside, where he could see the sky. 

They were missing recess. 

They sat for a long while, a punishment all on its own for impatient little boys. Despite this, John and Evan remained unphased, much to the bafflement and frustration of their teachers. 

Black t-shirt next to white paper, fiery defiance next to emotionless smoke. 

They were sent to the principal's office. 

Evan was unimpressed by the tired, grey-haired man that sat at the desk before them. John had barely spared the man a glance before returning to his art, and Evan could’ve _screamed_ at how unfair it was that John’s passion was so portable, that he couldn’t just start burning papers the way John doodled on worksheets. 

“Boys…” the Principal sighed, and they all knew the routine, all knew this whole exchange was meaningless. 

Evan glared and his fingers twitched.

John rolled his eyes and don't look up. 

They all knew this whole exchange was meaningless because how do you punish children who know that the consequences are temporary? Who’ve realized the flaws in the system and play it like a game, because they don't act their age, they act with knowledge and experience they can’t possibly have. 

Anger in fire.

Apathy in smoke.

Meaningless.

The boy with fire in his mind and the boy with art in his fingertips were sent back to class.

They stood outside, the school yard empty post-everyone going home. The wind was soft, the air silent, the grass brushing their ankles, and Evan watched calmly as John carefully ripped a page out of his notebook. He placed it back in his bag, then straightened and held the paper out to Evan expectantly. 

The raven male accepted the page gingerly, and barely suppressed a gasp when his gaze fell upon the line of grey slashed across white. 

The drawing was gorgeous, ornate even. Crisscrossing lines and gentle curves that created an organic, sprawling pattern across the paper; nothing at all and everything all at once. It was breathtaking. 

Evan glanced up at John, a question in his eyes and glittering enthusiasm erasing all remaining hints of anger or frustration from his young features. John gave the other a small, knowing smile. 

Evan’s fingers fumbled in his bag and they knelt facing on another, the drawing laid out on the sidewalk between them. The lighter clicked between tanner fingers, and the two watched with bated breath as Evan gently, reverently brought the flickers of orange and yellow and heat to the edge of the paper. 

The fire spread like a wave, soaking up the white and graphite as it turned paper charred and black. Glowing golden embers lined the fire’s path, and the beautiful pattern John had drawn seemed otherworldly as fire melded with earth and the lines illuminated like magical runes. 

They watched until all that remained of the drawing was a pile of cold, grey ash and the memory of fluorescent beauty burned into their minds. 

“Wow…” Evan whispered, and his fingers found the grey and were soon coated in it. John observed him quietly, his hands pulling at clump of grass in the sidewalks’ cracks with an absentminded sluggishness.

They sat there until the sun began to set, and their parents arrived in a panic to take them home. 

Even as a tight, worried hand dragged Evan along, the Asian boy glanced over his shoulder to meet the eyes of a brunette who stared back with amusement overpowering apathy in normally stoic icy eyes. 

_‘I’ll see you soon’,_ his expression seemed to say. 

Evan smiled.


End file.
